you. look. ahsohot.

ah, so. i'm in india, for work. i could write about things like employment rates, the rising middle class, and the growth of bangalore as the epicenter of india's silicon valley. however - you can read much better articles written by much smarter people from much more respectable publications, such as the famous new york times or well-reputed wall street journal. instead, i will write about bollywood. specifically, the men of bollywood. in particular, one.

i stay in a lovely guesthouse provided by my company, and each bedroom has a nice sony tv. each tv has 114 channels. at any one given point in time, i can guarantee you that this guy is on 26 of these channels. it could be for one of two reasons.

1) an advertisement

this guy endorsed 21 different products in 2005, 60 products in 2006, and fucking everything in 2007. here is a very abbreviated list of his recent endorsements:

• Belmonte suiting company
  
• Bagpiper soda beverages
• Himani Navratan: a company providing oil and talcum powders
• Sunfeast food products: Indian snack company
• Hyundai: manufacturer of junkyards masquerading as cars

And last, but certainly not least,

• Emami Fair and Handsome Men's Fairness Cream

Here is the genius flowchart displayed on their website that explains why men need fairness cream.

i am always wanting to attract the mens, too. many mens.

2) a music video

this man appears on every other music video that's aired. lately, everyone has been going bonkers over his new 6-pack, so my favorite music video includes

• 5 costume changes in 4:30 minutes
• lots and lots of rain indoors
  
• slow-motion emergence from a pool wearing leather pants, with gratuitous torso panning
  
• blistering wind. here, winds blow so angrily that shirts cannot bear to stay closed.

here's the youtube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ujSFr4wE3ws&feature=related

if you can't find it, search for 'dard e disco.'

i know that 4:30 is a lot to ask of your life, so the two top places i would tag as sightseeing 'must sees' in this bollywood powertour are:

2:10-2:40
2:57

trust me. you won't regret it.

with all due respect, this guy seems like the hardest working guy i know. he sort of reminds me of a cross between ryan seacrest, britney spears when she was 17, and someone ugly.

sorry, guy. don't take this the wrong way, but please. get out of my life.

personal diplomat

i spend a lot of my day chatting online, typing into these tiny little boxes on the computer, and receiving messages back. it's stupid, but i seem to spend a lot of time doing it, so i guess i like it ok.

i have a little picture that shows up next to every message i type. it looks like this








i have a friend who i often talk incessant nonsense with, including excessive drinking, annoying people, and other things that make us vomit. he also has a picture that appears next to all of his messages. it looks like this









sometimes when we're chatting, i imagine that these two things are actually sitting at a bar drinking beer and having the conversation we're having. the penguin gestures emphatically and the pink thing nods enthusiastically. then they have some more beer. they chat a bit longer, say goodbye at the door, and walk home. i, of course, only follow the penguin home. he picks up his mail at the front gate, walks upstairs, and walks into his studio. the studio looks like this














it looks suspiciously like my own. at this point, while i would go into the kitchen and read gossip blogs on the counter while boiling water for pasta, little penguin probably does much more interestesting things. I would imagine that his evening would include

• padding around the studio looking for something fun to do
• eating some salty snacks
• being grumpy
• trying to resolve spiky hair issues with new overpriced hair product from pure beauty
• being dichromatic

hmm. in retrospect, me and penguin are not so different.

regardless, i'm sure penguin would be a lot better with people than i am. he may be just as grumpy, but he's probably a lot more diplomatic about his approach. let's compare:

me: that is the most ridiculous answer i have ever heard. your stupidity makes me wants to stab myself in the eye.
penguin: [holds up 'wrong' sign]

me: you have been talking about yourself for three hours, and you only have content to fill two minutes. i would rather set myself on fire than continue listening to you speak.
penguin: [holds up 'silencio' sign]

me: you seem to think that you're rather funny because you appear to be laughing at the sentence you just said. oh. i'm sorry. what? that was a joke? you've got to be kidding. your lack of joketitude is appalling.
penguin: [holds up 'zzzz' sign]

see? penguin would probably be a much better representative of me than i am. quiet, concise, yet firm. as such, i think i may have him stand for me not only in chat conversations, but in all scenarios. i will direct him to my meetings, send him to my piano lessons, and make him stand in line at the dmv for me.

awesome.

unimpressed

so for a couple of days now, i've been visiting a place that's 12.5 hours ahead of where i usually live. as a result, i am awake at 3am and have been trying to fall asleep now for about four hours. for you, i would like to provide a sampling of the things that i've spent time thinking about during this half-asleep, half-awake period:

• wow, the gucci spring 08 line is stunning, isn't it? those pinks and yellows and grays - so lovely all together.
• i'm hungry. there's some beef jerky in my suitcase, i think.
• apparently the tap water quality here is very poor. should i be brushing my teeth with filtered water?
• i hate that i love facebook.
• men who wear their hair in ponytails should be shot.
• you know, to be honest, britney's new album isn't that bad. her people got some good producers.
• ella ella ella eh eh under mah um-bur-ella
  
• if i had to be any animal, i would definitely be a cheetah. or maybe a tiger? a white tiger? no wait...a cheetah. yeah. cheetah. just goes to show. trust your first instinct.
  
• people who like quinoa have no souls. that crap has, like, no flavor. plus it looks like it has pubic hair. absolutely revolting.

THIS is what i think about when i'm not paying attention? this??

my brain is garbage.

travel in binary

a couple of days ago i left for a long trip, and have since been in my destination for about 12 hours. i've always been a terrible documenter of experiences that i think are overdocumented, but i will try anyway.

this morning i realized that throughout my entire journey i was assessing everything in a completely binary fashion: awesome and not awesome. i would like to recount these for you for your reading tolerance.

awesome: friends who give you beef jerky as a parting gift for india. i could not have thought of a better gift for myself if i had studied 'gifts for myself' for a semester.

not awesome: flights to newark. ok, i fully realize that i live in a silly hipster neighborhood where i hardly ever see anyone elderly and am therefore unable to engage them in friendly chatter about their daily activities, but i never would have guessed that they had all started migrating en masse to newark on continental airlines on saturday afternoons. my flight was like the Old Person Corral.

why did this suck? because the old man in front of me reclined his seat as far back as it could go for the duration of the flight, and the old woman behind me asked me to put my seat fully upright after i reclined it 2 inches for 2 minutes. 'i have to use the tray,' she explained, as though she were sharing a legitimate reason with me. because i am obedient and passive aggressive, i stewed with perfect posture for the entire flight.

awesome: private television screens on international flights. i know everyone hates flying coach on international flights, but i love television, and having one three inches from your face for 12 consecutive hours is like my dream come true.

not awesome: csi:anywhere. this show is terrible. terrible acting, terrible writing, terrible everything. this show sucks, and i am annoyed that it took up valuable real estate on the one of the nine looping channels on my private tv. this show made me want to set myself on fire.

awesome: arriving in delhi. for fear of getting too close to bad travel writing, i'll be brief. the feeling of dismebarking in a new city where you've never been is stupendous. even though your brain says, 'more tv, please,' your heart says, 'yay! time for exploring!'

not awesome: realizing you're a complete fucktard. it occurred to me when i was waiting for my luggage that i didn't have the cell phone number of the girl who was meeting me at the airport, or the address of the house in which i was staying. i had set the bar low earlier that day for internally congratulating myself on having my passport, which tells you something about my personal reward system.

awesome: being saved from idiocy, no thanks to your stupid brain that likes tv. i found her.

not awesome: smog. this city is so smoggy that you can actually see it inside buildings. it reminds me of how my apartment looked and smelled when it almost burned down: smoky and vaguely bbq-ish, minus the delicious skewer.

awesome: going to work. it was awesome. i saw a cow. moo!

such is life. more later.